Supplementary Supporting Statement: sectiLinking to Employment Activities Pre‐Release through Specialized American Job Centers

Funding Opportunity Announcement

Linking to Employment Activities Pre‐Release through Specialized American Job Centers (AJCS) – (“LEAP”)

Supplemental Justification

Supplemental Supporting Statement A: Justification

This request seeks OMB approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act for the unique information collection requirements in the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-release through Specialized American Job Centers (AJCs), or “LEAP,” Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). The Employment and Training Administration (ETA), U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) will announce the availability of approximately $5,000,000 in grant funds authorized by Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) section 169 and Second Chance Act of 2007 section 212 to provide the opportunity for Local Workforce Development Boards (LWDBs) to develop and operate specialized AJCs inside county, municipal, or regional jails and correctional facilities. These AJCs will provide a range of services to assist soon–to-be-released local inmates to prepare for employment to increase their opportunities for successful reentry into their home communities. This second round of pilot grants seeks to strengthen communities by better integrating services already available in the community.

Projects funded by this grant program will build partnerships between local correctional systems and the local workforce systems by linking transitioning offenders with a range of community-based workforce services that lead to successful employment. LEAP grant funds will support the development and implementation of these specialized AJCs, which must be linked directly to existing full service community-based AJCs, enabling local inmates to prepare for employment prior to release and to continue with services in the community once released.

The DOL expects to award approximately 10 grants of up to $500,000 each to LWDBs. These grants will have a 24-month performance period. The ETA is focused on sustainability and seeks to fund jail-based specialized AJCs that will be sustained beyond the life of the grant. LWDBs must apply in partnership with their county or municipal governments and their county, municipal, or regional correctional facilities (this excludes any state or Federal correctional facilities that may be located in the local commuting area) and provide evidence of this partnership in their application. In states where the State Workforce Development Board (SWDB) carries out the functions of the LWDB pursuant to a DOL-approved waiver, or in states designated as a single-state local area, as established under WIOA section 107, the SWDB is an eligible applicant. In states that operate unified correctional systems where there are no county, municipal, or regional correctional facilities but instead all correctional institutions fall under the jurisdiction of the State, LWDBs may partner with the state-run correctional facility in the local commuting area.

Applications will include the following information collections: 1) Form SF-424 “Application for Federal Assistance,” separately cleared under OMB control number 4040-0004, 2) Project Budget, 3) Project Narrative, and 4) Attachments to the Project Narrative.

Electronic availability:

This grant solicitation is available on the grants.gov Web site. Based on past DOL experience, the Department anticipates 75 percent of responses will be submitted electronically.

Small Entities:

This information collection will not have a significant impact on a substantial number of small entities.

Assurances of confidentiality:

These grant solicitations do not offer applicants assurances of confidentiality.

Special circumstances:

This FOA implicates no special circumstances.

Burden:

Based on past experience, the DOL expects to receive approximately 65 applications from an equal number of respondents.  The ETA estimates public reporting burden for the information collection to average 20 hours per response for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining needed data, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.

65 applications x 20 hours = 1,300 hours.

The DOL has increased the October 2014, average hourly earnings in the professional and business services industry of $29.29 per hour by 40 percent (total $41.01 per hour) to monetize this burden.  See The Employment Situation—October 2014, DOL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_11072014.pdf at page 32.

1,300 hours x $41.01 = $53,313.00

The DOL associates no other burden costs with this information collection. In addition to the application, each grantee will be required to submit quarterly financial, performance, and narrative reports to the ETA. Those information collection requirements will be cleared under a separate control number.

Total burden: 65 respondents, 65 responses, 1,300 hours, $0 other cost burden.

Supplemental Supporting Statement B: Statistical Methods

This information collection does not employ statistical methods.

2